Slow Cooker Stuffed Shells—jumbo pasta shells are stuffed with a beefy cheesy mixture and smothered in marinara sauce.
Related: INSTANT POT stuffed shells recipe
Slow Cooker Stuffed Shells
These stuffed shells have great flavor! My son ate and ate and ate them until he couldn’t eat anymore. Many stuffed shells recipes use cheese and spinach. I decided to stuff them with a ground beef and cheese mixture. They had amazing flavor!
I stuffed the pasta shells without boiling them first. It was a little bit difficult but I like to take kitchen shortcuts when I can and not getting out a pot of boiling water was worth any effort it took to stuff the hard pasta shells.
This recipe makes a lot of shells and can feed about 8 people. If you’re serving a smaller group then I would suggest halving the recipe. Store any leftovers in an airtight container for up to a week in the refrigerator.
These shells are the bomb diggity. They are my kids new favorite food! Try them out soon.
What should I serve with Slow Cooker Stuffed Shells?
I’m a fan of a plain green salad with the olive garden salad dressing. You could also serve with garlic bread or garlic knots to sop up of some of the marinara sauce.
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Slow Cooker Stuffed Shells
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 4 hours
- Total Time: 4 hours 20 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
Description
Jumbo pasta shells are stuffed with a beefy cheesy mixture and smothered in marinara sauce.
Ingredients
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp dried basil
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp dried parsley
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 2 cups cottage or ricotta cheese
- 1 egg
- 1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
- 1 (12 oz) box jumbo pasta shells (has about 42 shells in it)
- 2 cups water
- 1 (26 oz jar or can) marinara sauce
Instructions
- In a pan over medium high heat brown the ground beef for about 5 minutes. Add in the salt, garlic powder, pepper, basil, onion powder, parsley and oregano. Stir.
- Add cottage/ricotta cheese, egg, mozzarella and parmesan into the bowl with the meat. Stir to combine.
- Use your fingers to stuff the meat mixture into the pasta shells. Some shells will be easier to stuff than others.
- Place each of the shells into the bottom of your slow cooker. Pour 2 cups water over the shells and then pour the marinara sauce over the top evenly.
- Cover and cook on low for 4 hours, or until pasta is tender. Serve and enjoy!
- Category: Pasta
- Method: Slow Cooker
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Hey can I just put the meat in the sauce?
yes you can!
I made this tonight as written and the shells turned to mush and it was practically inedible. The flavor of the filling was good, but the texture was so bad we couldn’t finish it and had to throw the rest out. I would do this in 1/2 the time allotted in the slow cooker next time if I wanted to do it again, but honestly I was so put off by this we’ll probably just stick to making them the traditional way.
Sorry for your bad results. Each slow cooker cooks differently and some cook so hot. I would suggest cutting cooking times down if you use that slow cooker again.
that sound very good
What is the water for? Wouldn’t the sauce cook the pasta without the water? I’ve never tried pasta in my slow cooker before and can’t wait to try.
Since the pasta is uncooked I used the water to cook the shells. Hope you like it!
If you are a lazy cook can you just substitute the same amount of pasta like macaroni and just stir it together instead of stuffing a shell?
Oh for sure! That’s a good idea 🙂